1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an adjustable cap that provides both coarse and fine size adjustments.
2. Background of the Prior Art
People's heads come in all sizes. Accordingly, hats, and specifically caps that are worn by such people must accommodate the variety of head sizes. There are three major methods for sizing a cap for a specific person's head.
The first sizing method calls for each cap to be made in a size specific for the particular wearer. While such a method, which gives each cap wearer a custom size hat, is ideal from a comfort level, it is not realistic from a manufacturing and inventory point of view. As there are a large variety of head sizes, a retailer of caps would need to keep a large inventory of sizes in order to accommodate every potential customer. Additionally, the manufacturer would need to produce a large variety of sizes of each hat that it produces resulting in huge tooling costs. Except for very expensive custom made hats for the person for whom money is no object, having a hat that is made precisely in the size needed by a particular wearer is not economically feasible. In order to overcome the problems of exact size caps, manufacturers produce caps in a few sizes in much the same manner that shoe manufacturers produce shoes. A person simply chooses a hat that is closest to his head size and wears that hat. The problem with this method is that very few people have a head size that matches the size of the hat that they wear. Accordingly, most people wear a hat that is slightly too big or slightly too small, resulting in less than a completely comfortable fit. Although not as extensive as with custom hat sizes, this method also creates manufacturing and inventory problems for the manufacturer and retailer respectively, as a relatively large number of each type of hat produced and sold is needed.
In order to overcome the above problems, hats that have sizing features have been developed. In such a method a person buys a hat and sizes the hat to the size that is most comfortable. This relieves the manufacturer and retailer of having to manufacture and stock a large number of hat sizes for each type of hat that is made and sold. One type of sizing system is the well known prong system wherein the back of the cap has a pair of straps located at the back proximate the lower periphery of the cap. One strap has a plurality of male prongs thereon, while the second strap has a plurality of female protrusions thereon for receiving the prongs of the first strap. The cap is sized by having more (smaller hat size) or less prongs (larger hat size) received within the receptacles. This system works reasonably well but it too has only a finite sizing ability and tends to leave most wearers with a cap that is slightly too large or slightly too small. To address this problem, sizing methods have been proposed that give a near infinite number of sizes that can be achieved. Such methods include placing cooperating hook and loop material on each of the straps and using the hook and loop material to mate the two straps to the exact size desired by the wearer. Another method uses a buckle on one of the straps with the other strap being received within the buckle and the buckle clamped closed on this other strap when the desired size is achieved. These methods give a wearer a more perfect size fit but they fail to account for the fact that a person's head swells and shrinks somewhat during the course of a day which means that the person's hat will be at times slightly too big and at other times slightly too small resulting in a less than perfect level of comfort during hat wear. A person can make size adjustments throughout the day as his head shrinks and swells, however, this is inconvenient and results in a person needing to feel discomfort in order to appreciate that it is time to resize the cap.
A method has been proposed to address the problem of head shrinking and swelling as they relate to hats. Such method uses a band of resilient material, such as an elastic band, around the lower periphery of the cap. The resilient material allows the wearer's head to expand and contract while maintaining the hat snugly about the wearer's head. This method provides a very comfortable fit, yet it suffers from the same problems associated with custom fit hats described above. Specifically, the hat employing a resilient member must be sized near the user's head in order to be effective. A hat that is initially too big will not fit irrespective of the resilient member and a hat too small will be too tight irrespective of the resilient member. Therefore, the retailer is again faced with the problems of stocking a large number of caps in varying sizes for each type of cap sold and the manufacturer faces the problem of having to tool up to make this large number of hats in varying sizes.
Therefore, there exists a need in the art for a cap that is comfortable to wear by a person of any given head size and that allows the person's head to shrink and swell throughout the hat wearing day, which cap overcomes the above mentioned problems found in the art. Specifically such a cap must be comfortable to almost all wearers and at all times of the day without the need to adjust the size during wear. Such a cap must not require that a retailer stock a large number of caps of various sizes for each type of cap sold and, correspondingly, must not require a manufacturer to produce caps in a wide variety of sizes. Such a cap must be of simple design and construction and must be relatively easy to use.